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Glastonbury Festival has taken the world by storm since the 1970s but with some of the most iconic music moments in history has come a fair few controversies. It has become the most famous festival in the world and this year will celebrate its 39th outing, with headliners such as The 1975, Olivia Rodrigo, Neil Young and Rod Stewart in the legends slot. With the festival less than a month away, we take a look back at its most controversial moment, and it’s not The Smiths stage invasion or Noel Gallagher’s fury at Jay-Z being named headliner.
Glastonbury is renowned for its unwelcome visitors in the form of die hard music fans who either don’t want to fork out for a ticket or simply can’t secure one in the Hunger Games-esque ticket sales. Throughout the years people have gone to extremes to get a front row ticket to the festival. There are endless routes people have tried from buying counterfeit tickets to swimming their way into the site and simply rocking up with a dream of sneaking in unnoticed. But in 2002, it suddenly became a lot harder for people to try their chances.
The year saw the arrival of Festival Republic, a company tasked with ensuring the festival security was tighter than ever. Michael Eavis made the decision to place a £1million fence around the perimeter of the festival site.
In his book, Glastonbury 50: The Official Story of Glastonbury Festival, Eavis wrote: “I knew I had to build it.
“In truth, I’d never minded whether people paid to get in or not, as long as we sold enough tickets to keep going. But it was clear we had to be able to control the numbers and keep it safe.”
The decsion was a controversial one, with many fearing the festival would become too corporate and lose its hippy ethos of peace and love. Yet, after the massive influx of gate crashers at the festival in 2000, the decision was final and enforced to protect ticket-holders as well as those who might be injuring themselves trying to break into the site itself.
Speaking to the BBC, Julie, who broke in by crawling under the fence in 1993, said: “Everybody knew you could break in back then.
“It’s true the festival lost its edge after the 90s. It was more edgy then, but it’s a much better festival for everyone now. Safety is important.”
Tamzin snuck into the festival in 2019 by climbing over a small ladder someone had propped up by a ditch.
Speaking to the BBC she said: “A lot more middle class people go now, and proper hippies can’t go because it’s too expensive.
“A lot of people think it’s too big now: you can’t possibly see everything or do everything. It’s really exhausting and it’s too intense, it’s really overwhelming.”
However, the fence proved to be a success and it remains a part of Glastonbury Festival to this day.
